Smashed
by TMBlue
Summary: COMPLETE! One-shot. Mid-HBP. Ron stumbles into Hermione's little secret.


Ron yawned as he walked through the darkening corridors of Hogwarts, bag slung lazily over his shoulder. He was exorbitantly late coming back up from dinner after having to dodge several attempts at being cornered by Lavender. And now, he was sure that Harry would be with Dumbledore already, studying memories, and Hermione would more than likely be holed up to revise. She'd seemed a bit more tense, recently... or was it just him?

After he'd broken things off with Lavender, they had gone back to a relatively normal friendship, and he'd been so relieved to have Hermione back that he'd hardly been able to concentrate on his own revisions. But Hermione, of course, had to get perfect scores on everything and was not to be distracted by his new-found lightness.

Ah well. At least they were speaking again. At least she was _smiling _at him again.

He shrugged his shoulder, adjusting his bag as it began to slip down his arm. And just as he was about to turn the next corner toward the stairs, he heard it.

Freezing, he listened out for it again. Yes, there was definitely a rather loud crashing sound echoing from behind a closed door, nearby.

Eyebrows raising, he turned right instead of left, disappearing into the shadowy hallway without any windows, the one that wasn't used for anything anymore, aside from the storage of old desks and books, clutter that no one had bothered to sort yet.

The sound reverberated again, a bit more chaotic this time. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he reached for his wand, curiosity shrinking back to be replaced with nervousness. No one ever came down here. Well, that was wrong. He'd been dragged down here once, to be snogged by Lavender...

But that was beside the point.

This was serious. Or one might assume it to be...

If the next crash hadn't been accompanied by the sound of someone half-sobbing, half-shouting with frustration.

And though he couldn't be sure, he felt an odd sensation of familiarity wash over him. Surely it wasn't-

He pushed open the last door on the left, revealing a shadowy sight of Hermione, hair wild and back toward him, stomping her foot in agitation.

His eyebrows shot up a bit further as he lowered his wand.

"Hermione?"

She jumped round to face him with a gasp, her eyes wide as they landed on him from across the room.

"R-Ron?" she questioned. "What are you doing here?!"

"I might ask you the same thing," he said, amusement edging in as he half-grinned across the destroyed room at her. Desks were overturned, papers scattered, and even the shelves that had once been hanging from the far wall had obviously been torn down from one side so that they leaned precariously downward, ready to dislocate completely from the wall if you breathed too hard.

She sighed with exasperation, and even from this distance, he could see her cheeks reddening. He might be concerned about her if it wasn't for the steady way she looked at him, no tears in her eyes or signs of physical distress.

This was no good for him, looking at her like this. She was basically staring, no doubt from rage at his unwelcome appearance during the middle of some sort of outburst. But unfortunately, he had seen her this way far too many times. And not all of them had been while he'd been awake... His trousers tightened, and he cleared his throat, fighting the blush that was attempting to glow from the unbuttoned collar of his shirt.

Deciding to take on the challenge, he shut the door behind him and moved carefully across the destroyed room, toward her.

"You alright?" he asked, formally, because it seemed like he should, given the state of things... the state of _her_.

"Fine," she said, shortly. "Can you just leave me alone?"

He stopped in his tracks, halfway across the room.

"Did I do something?" he asked, suddenly fearful. Wait, how had they parted at dinner? On good terms, he had thought. Surely he couldn't have bollocksed things up between saying "just going to finish this pudding" and her nodding back to him as she left the Great Hall.

Or could he? Could she have had a run-in with Lavender?

Now he was panicking. He couldn't lose her again. His heart was suddenly pounding, and he felt a bit sick with fear. And though she was opening her mouth to answer his question, he got his own words out first.

"Hermione, whatever I did, I swear I didn't mean it. Just give me a second to figure out-"

She sighed again, interrupting him...

"You didn't do anything."

Relief flooded through him and his chest unclenched.

"Shit, that's good news."

She almost smiled.

"Well, then what the hell is going on in here?" he asked, taking a few steps closer, through the debris. "Redecorating?"

She looked uncharacteristically embarrassed at his words, and he scratched the back of his neck as he came to a slow stop a few feet in front of her.

"No," she said simply, slumping her shoulders.

"Ah, I know. The shelves insulted you? Gits."

He grinned at her as she rolled her eyes.

"Look, it's nothing, really. I was angry, so I- ...I dunno," she shrugged.

"Took it out on this room?" he finished for her.

"Makes me feel better," she mumbled.

"Done this before?" he asked, eyebrows lifting again.

"Shut up."

"I'm not making fun of you, you know," he assured her, toeing a broken shard of what used to be a potted plant.

He felt her eyes on him as he looked back up at her. And he was oddly speechless at the way she was studying him, reading him... her eyes much softer than he'd seen them in so long.

Kinder. Closer. The way he saw her when he'd unconsciously hope-

"You sort of uncovered my secret," she admitted. "Nobody ever comes down here. Sometimes it's just sort of nice to... break some things."

The corner of his mouth turned up.

"And _this _is why I thought you were scary when we first met. Probably set me back a few years, seeing this. Going to have to let me win a couple of practice duals to undo the damage..."

She made a sound of exasperation, but she grinned through it, which Ron thought sort of defeated the purpose.

"What's got you pissed enough to break a closet door?" and he tilted his head toward the cracked wood, to Hermione's astonishment.

"Oh! I didn't even realise," she blushed, looking rather sympathetically toward the door. "Just a ridiculous comment from someone in Arithmancy. It's nothing."

"You know," Ron sniffed, "this is sort of amazing."

"Oh, sure," she scoffed.

"No, really," Ron insisted. "I was bloody boring myself to death imagining going back to Gryffindor with Harry swimming around people's memories and you probably rewriting a potions essay for the eleventh time."

Her eyebrows shot up.

"I should probably work on that essay."

Ron gawked at her, his expression morphing into laughter as he dropped his bag off his shoulder, to the floor.

"Come on. I see at least three intact picture frames, not to mention the as yet undisturbed contents of those drawers-" and he pointed toward an out-of-use teacher's desk which had obviously been slammed, by Hermione, into the adjacent wall.

"No way. You don't get to watch," she huffed.

He swallowed, ignoring the way his stomach lurched at her words...

"I'm going to _help _you," he amended, clamping his wand between his teeth as he rolled his shirt sleeves up a bit more.

"What?"

He removed his wand from between his teeth and aimed for the main door.

"We should probably silence the room and lock the door," he said thoughtfully, performing the charms as Hermione watched on, incredulously.

"This is mental," Hermione reasoned, watching him carefully as he turned back to face her.

"Yeah, but that's kind of what we are, innit?"

She blinked at him.

"You're going to put it all back right at the end, aren't you?" he realised, aloud. "That part can't be fun."

"It's not," she admitted. "But it actually does help clear your mind, straightening up, when you need to leave again."

"Right."

They looked at each other, waiting. And then she was laughing.

"Oh, God, this is ridiculous."

"Wands ready?" Ron asked, suppressing a chuckle.

She shook her head, but she lifted her wand, aiming for the top drawer of the nearest desk.

"Call out what you're attacking, so we don't hit the same thing and blow a hole through the wall," Hermione said, still laughing.

"Got it," Ron said, turning around so they stood back to back. "I've got the rusted frame of that old wizard over there."

And within seconds, scattered bits of random things were flying around the room, Hermione catching debris with a hovering charm whenever it would blast too close to them. Several minutes later, panting, they stood facing one another, surrounded by a floating cloud of wood shards, papers and dust.

"Bloody hell, that's entertaining."

Hermione bent forward, laughing again as she rested her hands on her knees to catch her breath.

Ron swished his wand around them and the debris pattered to the floor, encircling them. Righting two nearby chairs, he pushed one toward Hermione and turned the other around so that he could sling his leg over it, backward, forearms resting on the laddered back. He brushed his fringe out of his eyes, twirling his wand between his bony fingers.

Hermione collapsed to her own chair, smiling almost drunkenly. And there they sat, close enough that he could lean forward and touch her, if he _wanted _to...

"Cheers," he said, somewhat hoarsely, thankful that she had let him join her.

She shook her head.

"Won't be the same by myself now."

A warmth began to spread through him as he watched her watching him.

This was good. This was better than they had been in... so long.

"Hermione," he started, having no idea what he was going to say next.

She watched, expectantly.

"Uh, I'm sorry. You know," and he waved a hand through the air vaguely, "for whatever upset you."

She smiled softly at him, and his heart skipped.

"I answered a question in class, but my answer was... sort of wrong."

"No way."

"Only _half _wrong," she amended. "I left out the second part because I didn't think it was relevant. But I couldn't explain because we were already moving on, and now everyone thinks I made a mistake."

"Oh my God," Ron gasped, dramatically.

"Oh, shut up!"

Hermione nudged him in the shin with the toe of her trainer, but he just grinned back at her.

"I think you won," he said, and she puzzled at him.

"Won?"

"Yeah. Fifteen witches and wizards were shocked speechless for half a minute when you made a mistake, but you spent your evening tearing a room to shreds without having to worry about getting in trouble because you can put all this rubbish back together in a matter of seconds, I'm sure."

"Two or three minutes, to be safe," she said.

They smiled at each other, and even through the dark, Ron was sure she was blushing again. Only he couldn't quite figure out exactly why, and the options were making him a little bit dizzy.

"When you feel like this again, you'll come and find me, yeah?"

She hesitated, only for a moment, studying him as his mouth went dry.

"Yeah," she finally said. "I definitely will."

He nodded, pleased. She held his gaze for much longer than she ever had before. And he was pretty sure he'd gotten himself out of yet another night of revising. Only, this time, Hermione was right there with him.


End file.
